As his relationship with Mayor Giuliani hit the skids, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew hit the road – taking 13 work-related trips in one 12-week period, The Post has learned.
An examination of the chancellor’s daily appointment schedules shows that Crew was a speaker at colleges and conferences from California to Virginia. And as Crew’s school-vouchers feud with the mayor heated up, so did the pace of his out-of-town traveling.
Board of Education officials say the speaking gigs are an important part of Crew’s job – while Giuliani aides privately claim the chancellor is in a desperate search for a new job.
But board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti said they asked Crew to travel more to raise the profile of the nation’s largest school system.
“It was a directive issued to the chancellor as part of his review at the end of the last school year,” Coletti said.
Said board president Bill Thompson:
“We thought it was part of his job and we told him to take this show on the road, if you will, and talk about some of the changes and accomplishments occurring in our schools.”
Since Nov. 1, Crew has hit state education conferences in Connecticut, Louisiana, California, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
In addition to teaching three classes at California State University in Sacramento, Crew has spoken at Babson College in Massachusetts as well as at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts’ School of Education.
The mayor’s top aide, Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota, said Crew’s travels shouldn’t be an issue.
“The mayor believes that Rudy Crew is a hardworking and dedicated professional,” Lhota said.
Herman Badillo, the mayor’s top education adviser who has been critical of Crew, said: “I think it’s a good thing to bring out, but I don’t really want to comment on it.”
The low-key reaction is a far cry from early March, when an administration official, who asked not to be named, pointed to Crew’s love of California.
That month, Crew threatened to resign over the mayor’s support for a school-voucher plan that would enable parents to send their kids to private and parochial schools.
Former Schools Chancellor Frank Macchiarola said that while he traveled less than Crew, the trips were important.
“I’m not a frequent-flier person but it depends on the way you are,” Macchiarola said.
“The important thing is to ask the question, ‘What kind of trips are being taken?’ They sound appropriate to me.”